| Author: |
Robert Ziegler |
| Dated: |
Sunday, August 01 2004 @ 12:01 PM EDT |
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2248 times |
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California was a déjà-vu. Tim and Marty dissolved into the sun, and Bunny materialized in a doorway. I had stayed stoned across that whole country, and she offered me a toke of Acapulco Gold. I didn’t even know Bunny and she didn’t know me but none of that mattered. We were star-crossed, and we were going to Canada, where I would write poetry for a living. We’d find a place in the forest, build a cabin, have a family, create art, and live happily ever after. We visited people who burnt incense and listened to psychedelic music, hung tie-dyed scarves on their walls and bead-curtains in their doorways; we slept on mattresses on the floor. I couldn’t wait to get away from it all.
I was realizing that my psyche wasn’t flexible enough to do speed and integrate multiple realities like Bunny’s was. Years of text books and the construction of academic papers, coupled with my conservative East coast family values had created an emotional house-of-cards, easily threatened by the dissolution of drugs. I became paranoid and insecure; my identity deconstructed, and the slender thread of connection with Bunny was easily broken. She, however, had years of training in Hawaiian surf-culture and found the laid-back drug scene both familiar and desirable; she engaged with the “brothers and sisters,” while I withdrew.
When we headed out, we were given a wedding gift of 20 hits of acid and a bag of Acapulco Gold. We dropped acid, toked, and drove in lazy spirals towards the border, gravitating towards dirt roads, avoiding highways. We were on the run, landing often in small towns, or dead-ending at waterfalls or abandoned cottages where we sometimes spent the night. Bunny had a sense of direction and favored using road maps; I preferred magical thinking and intuition, which once deposited us in a stretch of desert where my first rattlesnake, coiled and rattling, materialized, like an acid vision, out of the hot sand, disappearing as suddenly into the tumbleweeds. I had no idea where we were, but we were slowly ascending North. Whenever we clashed over our opposite methods, we’d roll a joint, mellow out, and lift off to another latitude.
I loved not knowing where I was nor where I’d be tomorrow. For a change, I had nothing due, no deadlines, only the vague premonition that we would eventually arrive somewhere and make a living. Bunny wanted a baby soon, and I worried she might already be pregnant. After her next period, I agreed to make a baby with her. As we drifted North, we attempted to rent remote cottages or cabins, but I’d apparently lost my touch; even places with “For Rent” signs in the windows had been, mysteriously, just rented that very morning. Northern California, Oregon, Washington State, all filled up: “No Vacancy.” Hippies were, we realized, undesirables; and, like it or not, hippies are what we had become. No beads, no flowers, but a dusty old Mercedes, jeans, long hair, and eyes like saucers were the giveaways.
Someone said that the San Juan Islands were a good place to settle. Lopez Island was a short ferry ride from Seattle, remote yet accessible. We rented a bungalow on a lagoon where long-legged herons stalked small bright fish. Lemony moonlight reflected across the tidal flats and the breeze carried the fecund smells of seaweed, shellfish, and green mud. How it happened I don’t know, maybe because news travels fast on an island (and we were probably news) but by the second week on the lagoon, I received my draft notice, a classification of 1-A, prime beef, ready for the “Killing-Fields.” It was from Grace Timothy, a woman my mother knew, who worked at the draft office in our local courthouse. It was my final warning, and I was subject to arrest if I did not appear back in Ohio for my induction orders. I tossed it on the table with a pile of poems I’d been writing. An array of driftwood, shells, and sea-smooth tree roots awaited Bunny’s assemblage; we were planning to make a living selling mobiles and poetry at local craft shops.I felt *censored*y, free, and insecure. A local carpenter had gotten wind of us, and dropped in to introduce himself. He offered us some grass, which lifted Bunny’s spirits but plummeted mine. We were out of weed and I was secretly relieved. My dream was to have children, get married, and bind Bunny to me so I wouldn’t be abandoned again. The bearded carpenter returned several times, clearly interested only in Bunny, and if she happened to be out foraging for sea-wrack, he’d quickly exit, leaving several joints for her. I masked my fear inside my poems, unable to admit my jealousy, afraid I’d lose face and drive her away, leaving me on my own, on the doorstep of Canada.
When my second final draft notice arrived, threatening my pending arrest and probable jail sentencing, I realized we had to cross the border, soon. The hippie-grapevine murmured that the border officials already had a comprehensive information system that held the names of draft-inductees who were attempting to slip through the border. One of our last nights on the lagoon we decided to drop the last of our LSD: bad idea; too much unresolved insecurity, too little ego-strength to manage the high voltage. The carpenter appeared with a gift rabbit for Bunny. She hugged and cuddled his gift; he was sad she was leaving already, there were places he’d planned to show her. I was invisible. I saw symbolism and metaphor, prophecy and doom. I was Dostoyevsky’s Man From Underground. I scribbled nonsense on sheets of paper while the rabbit passed between them like a baby.
Then I freaked. I opened the rose-embowered door and set the rabbit free. I sent the carpenter packing. I mounted the pulpit of my own self-righteousness and delivered a sermon to Bunny about values, morals and fidelity, about the carpenter’s secret plot, and how the rabbit was not just a rabbit but a magic trick, designed to steal her away; furthermore, we had to get married tomorrow, in Seattle, to give the baby a name, and that we should make love right now, to conceive our future, secure our matrimony. I was babbling a stream of unconscious word-salad, terror and brimstone.
Bunny curled into a ball at the corner of the mattress and cried. The impact of that night went deep. Five years later, when our marriage ended, Bunny said she had hallucinated horns on my head, flames in my eyes, and chains in my words, and that the flame of trust and love had been snuffed out that terrible night on the lagoon. To some extent, she was right: there were chains in my words, flames in my eyes; there were no horns, though, except those of the cuckold, wearing a crown of fear.
In downtown Seattle we found an available Justice of the Peace. All we needed, he said, was a witness. A young guy at the bus stop out front agreed, if it didn’t take long, because his bus was due any minute. The ceremony was brief, the dude caught his bus, and I drove to the SPCA to get Bunny a puppy to replace the rabbit. She picked a white Samoyed puppy which we named Pan, and, because it was a low-profile entry point, we boarded the ferry back to Lopez, and then the ferry to Victoria, British Columbia. With Pan tucked tightly under the seat, we nervously explained that our sleeping bags, pots and pans (our total belongings) were equipment we’d brought for a two week camping trip in British Columbia. We had some friends there. I held my breath as the steel-eyed customs officer weighed the story, studied my I.D., nodded curtly, and waved us into Canada. This was the first of the border crossings.
How were we directed to The Black Swan coffee house? Synchronicity ruled. How did I meet Andreas Schroeder, wunderkind poet and co-editor at the Sono Nis publishing house, himself an immigrant who had managed to support himself by crafting words? How did I wind up drunk at my very first poetry reading, slam dunked into the postmodern era by poets in shades chanting surrealistic sketches about skid row hookers at bus stops; their lines were sharp as razors, fast slices of contemporary angst, still pulsating as they served it up. I was imitating Shelley, rhyming soft-soaped couplets from another century.
Andreas was ruthlessly honest; my poetry was old hat. If I hoped to publish, I had to strip the ornaments off the tree and reveal the tree itself. I felt like my throat had been cut but no blood was drawn. I was just drunk and full of self-pity. Andreas scraped me off the floor, composed a job-recommendation letter which, he informed me, I’d need when I re-crossed the border. Re-crossed the border! Again? Shave off the beard, cut off the hair, buy a coat and tie, and present the letter, which described my new job as contributing journalist on his magazine. Be humble but not self-effacing; have no radical political convictions; rehearse my story carefully. The borders were tightening, so do it soon; now, get outa here.
Back down on Fourth Avenue we tracked down more connections. Someone took us to their pad to crash, shared their homemade bread and salad, passed a doobie after dinner, played Jimmy Hendrix, and my paranoia kicked back in. Bunny was mellow, connecting with everyone; I was uptight, needy, and distrustful. This was the pattern, and it persisted for years. I’d apologize, she’d listen, and thus the distance between us grew.
Someone gave us directions to Alice’s Restaurant, on Sechelt Peninsula, where we could connect with others who were going back to the land. Alice’s was a tiny restaurant with a jukebox of 60’s tunes, earthy murals on the walls, and hippies with guitar cases and tools, hanging out at the sunny tables. A gorgeous First Nations girl in cut-off jeans and workboots served us blueberry pie, then chatted with us. After hearing our plans, she spoke to her boyfriend, a muscular dude with a blonde ponytail, who slid into a chair at our table and told us to finish up and follow him. He hefted his toolbox into his beat-up red pickup, and we were soon tailing him down a dirt road, dust clouds pouring in through the windows of my ailing Mercedes.
With a machete he slashed a rough trail through an overgrown meadow and led us through a wall of damp rain-forest foliage. It was cool in there, mossy and damp. Four inch slugs left rainbow-trails across rotting stumps. A meadow of wildflowers appeared on the other side, and suddenly the Pacific Ocean slid into view like a stunning sapphire glinting in the distance. Our guide took long strides and we were soon standing in front of two weathered shacks, apparently once inhabited by Tracker Joe. Vandals had smashed the windows, and glass was scattered inside and out. Fifty feet below, out-croppings of sea-rock shone smoothly in the sun. Below that, barnacled rocks with seaweed wigs circled tidal pools which contained tiny hermit crabs and purple starfish. I was entranced.
Our guide broke the spell, saying he had to throw a roof on a barn, and disappeared into the tall grasses of the meadow. We’d stumbled on a temporary home and stayed three months, until summer ended. Bunny found a stub of broom and swept up the glass. I propped up the roof, and made a sandpit for a fire in a hole in the floor, just below the one-time chimney hole. With flat rocks and old boards we made a bed frame, shelves, and rustic furniture. Gulls screeched, Pan barked. By nightfall we’d made a dinner, had a smoke by the ocean, and fell into a contented sleep.
Time passed easily by the sea. We tried a little garden in the rocky soil, watched the tugboats inching up the channel, dragging their long booms of logs, and speculated on making that our vocation. We were dreamers. We began to awaken when the coastal rains began to pour steadily for days on end. The fire only smoldered because the wood was poor; the smoke hung low in eye-watering blue clouds inside the shack, too heavy and acrid to rise. Dampness rose up through the slatted floor, and our clothes and bedding stayed damp and mildewed. We sprawled on the mattress, just below the smoke-clouds, and wrote letters and poems. Our oasis was the general store, a three mile walk down the sometimes-dusty, sometimes-muddy road. Our money was dwindling. We bought blocks of cheese, chocolate, coffee, and cans of tobacco. Often we’d eat a two pound block of cheddar on the walk home, then dine on foraged greens, brown rice, shellfish or sardines. Mail became an excuse to walk to the store on a semi-daily basis. I had sent no mail to my parents since I’d disappeared from Maryland a month ago which was, in hindsight, a cruel thing to do; however, at the time, I was flying (scared) by the seat of my pants. One day, the RCMP pulled us over in front of the general store; my parents had notified some authorities and the officers would like to investigate my status. Our visitor’s permits were expired and we were eligible for deportation: we had 30 days to take appropriate steps. And I was told to phone my parents. I felt like a child who had run away from home and was being spanked by the authorities; simultaneously, I was relieved because a stalemate was breaking. My mother was hurt and worried; my father was distant, disapproving, and angry. I was defensive, outrageous, and sorry. Nothing had changed, despite the fact that I was married and immigrating to another country. We would continue to play out these roles with each other even after I returned home, eight years later, when the amnesty had been declared.
It was time to return to the border. Pan was sick. We were nervous. I packed my sheaf of poems; Bunny boxed her driftwood mobiles. We figured we’d earn some money with our creations while we were securing our immigrant status. We spent a week in Vancouver: thrift stores for border disguises, draft headquarters for script rehearsals, consignment stores for Bunny’s crafts, The University of British Columbia to humor my poem-publication-scheme, and, finally, to the borderline.
The customs man was an elderly gentleman with those same steely-eyes, though his had, perhaps from age, softened their metal edges. He was seated at a gun-colored desk in a beige cement office with one window. It was July. No one smiled; conversation was sparse as he scrutinized our letter through wire-rimmed bifocals. His nostrils flared at the scent of a possible red herring.
“What kind of poetry did you say you write? Umm-hmm. Been in any protest marches? Ummm. You’ll be living where, exactly? Hmmm. Your face has an uneven suntan; recently shave off a beard? Maybe you better go out to the car and bring in some of the poetry you’re gonna get paid to write, so I can see if it makes any sense. Mm-hmm.”
Routing through papers in the trunk, macadam boiling under my feet, sweating in the tweed jacket and tie, stomach in knots, I read words about green winds around imaginary borderlines, about the wages of separation, napalm oranges bursting on thatched huts. Shove that in my pocket. Let’s see, let’s see. Okay, here: the unborn baby, becoming a father for the first time. When I re-enter the cellular room, Bunny and he are chatting amicably. She’s saying she’s in her first trimester, and he can relate because his daughter is Bunny’s age and expecting, too, and what the young people’ll have to do to support their first child is anybody’s guess, times being hard like they are these days.
He likes my poem. He gets it! More poems like it should be written. His son-in-law should have a copy, if I don’t mind! His mask is gone, and now he’s a kind-eyed grandfather who’s signing our immigration papers. The dream is still alive, and we are suddenly Canadian landed immigrants!
The yang-side of the coin was dimmer: Pan had distemper and we couldn’t spare fifty dollars to have the vet put her down, so I would have to kill her; Bunny’s crafts were still in the backroom, as the owner “hadn’t had time to look at them,” and the Merecedes had a cracked head and needed immediate repairs. Parts and labor cost more than we had. We caught the ferry to Sechelt in mixed spirits; we were legally free in Canada, and we were broke and homeless, with a dying car and a dying dog.
I had no gun so I wrapped Pan inside an old blanket that I tied to a large rock, and threw her into the sea. Foam had been drooling from her mouth and she had been too weak and sick to eat or move. I’d never killed a domestic animal before so I looked at the sky and made a clumsy prayer. Seconds later, she floated free, back to the surface, having somehow come undone. I had to do it again, right. I fished her out, foaming and gagging with salt-brine, and Bunny had to leave. This time, the seconds lengthened into minutes, punctuated by big bubbles of air being released for the final time.
The engine of the Mercedes overheated and cracked, then rusted solid in the rainforest. It was mid-August and the local long-hairs said that if we thought August was wet, wait until September; not much winter along the coast, hardly any snow nor hardly any sun; just rain, fog, damp sea-wind, and lots and lots of gray. A fellow, they said, would want to have some kind of regular job working with his hands, and a warm, tight house, especially with a baby on the way.
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If life is a game, what constitutes winning?